IBM today announced that it has signed a 10-year information technology (IT) services agreement with Delhi Stock Exchange (DSE), one of the leading stock exchanges in India. As part of this Rs 11 crore agreement, IBM will provide business continuity and disaster recovery services to DSE as well as remotely host and manage its IT infrastructure. This will help the exchange meet the stringent business continuity guidelines as laid out by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) before it could resume its operations after a hiatus of six years. By engaging with IBM in a complete operational expenditure (pay-as-you-go) model, DSE will also save 100 percent capital expenditure on IT.

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Signed in June 2009, this agreement demonstrates IBM's focus to help clients 'Do more with Less' by engaging in an increasingly popular operational expense (opex) model. It also leverages IBM's global experience of over 40 years to provide business continuity and resiliency services to help clients minimize the costs and time-frames associated with recovering business operations in the event of a disaster.

DSE was one of country's largest stock exchanges - almost at par with Bombay Stock Exchange in the 90's, and has been in existence for over 60 years. In 2002, however, the exchange became inactive due to negligible trading volumes. Seven years later, the exchange is now looking at resurrecting itself to its former glory - one where it used to be bustling with over 2,800 companies listed. IBM will play a key role in helping DSE go live for trading by providing a highly secure environment and a robust resiliency solution with the goal of zero data loss once the exchange becomes operational later this year.

"As DSE looks to claim back its position as one of country's leading stock exchanges, the agreement with IBM couldn't have happened at a better time," said Mr. HS Sidhu, Executive Director and CEO, Delhi Stock Exchange. "As the world's leading IT services company, IBM will bring immense value to the exchange by providing time-tested and world-class managed services - that would help DSE become operational and successful once again."

Mr Vijay Gupta, Chairman - Business Development Committee, Delhi Stock Exchange, remarked, "DSE will play a key role in the stock trading landscape of India, once re-launched. IBM's commitment to helping DSE achieve that goal is commendable. IBM's strong value proposition of providing managed services in an opex model was also one of the key reasons why DSE decided to choose IBM for this strategic relationship."

Under this agreement, IBM will build, host and manage the entire disaster recovery infrastructure for DSE from its data center. IBM will also provide 24x7 monitoring services for hardware and networking devices from its command center.

Said Mr. Neeraj Sharma, Director, Integrated Technology Services, IBM India/South Asia, "Companies today want to do more with less in these economically challenging times. DSE's trust in IBM is a testament to IBM's value proposition and world-class capabilities to help its clients improve the operational efficiency and cost effectiveness as well as accelerate time-to-market for services."

About Delhi Stock Exchange:

The Delhi Stock Exchange Association Limited was incorporated as a limited company under the Indian Companies Act, 1913 on 25th June, 1947.

The main function of the company is to run a Stock Exchange in Delhi and to acquire and take over as a going concern the activities, functions and business of the then existing two stock exchanges, i.e., The Delhi Stock & Share Exchange Ltd and the Delhi Stock & Share Brokers Association Ltd. It also took over all the assets and liabilities, rights and duties of the two aforementioned companies.

The Securities contracts (Regulation) Act was made applicable to the Union territory of Delhi with effect from 9th December 1957 and simultaneous recognition was granted to the Delhi Stock Exchange under Section 4 of the securities Contracts (Regulation) Act. The Central government vide its Notification dated the 1st March 1982 granted permanent recognition to the exchange.

DSEL has made tremendous progress in its activities and has emerged as one of the leading and major stock exchanges in the country through continuous upgradation of processes and technology, innovative approach, responsive management and integrity and transparency of operations.

  For more details, please log on to http://www.dseindia.org.in/

  About IBM
  For more information, visit www.ibm.com/services

  Media Contacts:
  Goldie Srivastava
  IBM India
  +91-9880309691
  gsrivast@in.ibm.com

  Bill Mew
  IBM Media Relations
  44-207-202-5769
  MEWB@uk.ibm.com

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SOURCE: IBM